Richard Kamin denies ethical breach in auto program

However, the State Commission of Investigation (SCI) and a state
public interest group said the former state motor vehicles director
helped give the ultimate winning bidder an inside track when Kamin
allegedly ignored directives not to meet with the bidder before the
contract was awarded.

Kamin was appointed assistant state Republican leader three
weeks ago by GOP gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler. On Friday,
July 13, a Schundler spokesman s aid in carefully worded terms that
the candidate still supports Kamin.

"It appears that Dick (Kamin) didn't do anything inappropriate.
Certainly, he did not do anything illegal," said Schundler
spokesman Bill Guhl. "Bret sees no reason why he shouldn't continue
as co-chair of the state Republican Party."

James McGreevey, the Democratic candidate for governor, said in
a statement that Schundler's support for Kamin is a sign that "Bret
Schundler's way of doing business is no different than the way
Trenton insiders have been running the state for the last eight
years."

Lengthy Probe

The SCI spent 15 months investigating how the contract was
awarded to a California firm and completed two days of hearings on
Wednesday, July 11, into the cause s behind the problems in the
controversial system.

The final day focused largely on Kamin and his role in the
state's decision to hire Parsons Infrastructure and Technology
Group of Sacramento in August 1998 to design and install the system
at state inspection stations.

At the time, Kamin was director of the state Division of Motor
Vehicles. He was later removed from the post by then-Gov. Christine
Todd Whitman and transferred to another position in the state
Department of Transportation.

In 1997, the state was under orders from the federal government
to revamp its inspection system by December 1999 to comply with
state clean air standards. If it didn't meet the federal order, the
state could have lost $1.2 billion in federal highway
funds.

Parsons was hired but when the new system opened in December
1999, it was plagued by malfunctions, causing massive delays at
state inspection stations.

At the close of the hearings, the SCI referred its findings to
the Attorney General's office and the state treasurer. The next
day, Acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco ordered the Attorney General
to find a way to revoke the Parsons contract.

'No Controversy'

"As far as I am concerned, there is no controversy," Kamin said
in an interview on Friday, July 13.

Kamin said discussions about the plans for a new inspection
system were framed by the federal pressures to install a new
program and that the Florio administration had failed to come up
with an answer.

Kamin said he met with representatives of Parsons and other
potential bidders in September 1997 for suggestions on the content
of a request for proposals to be distributed throughout the
industry.

Typically, after requests for proposals are distributed, the
state examines the submissions and then designs bid specifications.
The request for proposals for t he auto inspection system was
distributed in February 1998.

An official with Parsons testified at the hearings that Kamin
and Parsons representatives met again in December 1997 when they
spoke about when the request for proposals would be released and
how it would be written.

Kamin said he did not recall the December 1997 meeting and had
no record of it in his diary. But while he said the meeting may
have occurred, he said it was not improper because he was not
involved in writing, evaluating or accepting the bids.

Kamin said the bids were written by officials in the governor's
office and the Treasury Department.

"The Division of Motor Vehicles and I were there to support the
successful bidder," Kamin said. "The governor's office and the
treasury put the bids together. That's what the SCI doesn't
get.

"The SCI should focus on how the bid was put together and that
was in Treasury, " Kamin said. "It was not the DMV (Division of
Motor Vehicles). It was never our contract."

Kamin said he had no further contacts with Parsons or any
potential bidders after the request for proposals was
issued.

Guhl, the Schundler spokesman, said that before the requests for
proposal were issued, Kamin only provided information to Parsons
that was "readily available to all potential bidders."

Directive Violated

Lee Seglem, the executive assistant to the SCI, said on July 13
that during the probe, investigators met with various officials
from many departments, including Treasury.

"No one from Treasury had one- on-one meetings when the
specifications were being written but Kamin did," Seglem said. "We
are saying that at a crucial juncture, when the request for
proposals was being written, executives from a highly interested
vendor had private meetings with senior state officials responsible
f or the process."

Seglem said the officials included Kamin and later, state
Transportation Commissioner James W. Weinstein Jr.

The SCI spokesman said there is no statute prohibiting officials
from meeting with potential bidders while requests for proposals
are being written. But he said that in 1995 Kamin and other state
officials received a clear directive from the state Division of
Purchase and Property.

"It (the directive) reminded anyone associated with the emission
program procurement not to have any private contact with any
potential bidder," Seglem said. "Everyone seemed to understand the
directive. At the very least, (private meetings) would cast a
perception of favored treatment."

Seglem also said the state's code of ethics bars officials from
acting in a way to "create an impression or suspicion" of
preferential treatment.

"Once the request for proposal begins to be written and
developed and well before it is issued, at that point, private
contacts should cease," Seglem said.

Staci Berger, program director for New Jersey Citizen Action,
said the accusations against Kamin are part of the problem with the
way large state contracts are awarded.

"Parsons wanted the contract and they used every piece of the
political puzzle to make it happen," said Berger, representing the
state's largest independent watchdog coalition.

She also said a system that involves granting contracts to
politically influential companies resulted in a process that didn't
work.

"Privatizing was supposed to reduce costs but clearly we're
paying more than before and getting less service for something we
may not need," Berger said. "(Kamin) is certainly not the only
person responsible but it was on his watch."

A central part of the SCI probe concerned why Parsons was the
only bidder on such a large project. Kamin said Parsons and the ESP
Corp. are the only firms in the nation that design and build
centralized auto testing systems.

Kamin said the Parsons bid represented a coalition of firms
working together, including Parsons and ESP.

One reason Parsons was the only bidder was that the firm is
large enough to pay the $16 million cost of installing the new
systems when it would not be reimbursed until the project was up
and running, said Kamin.

Kamin was named motor vehicles director in April 1994 and served
until June 1999. He said Whitman blamed him for the long, start-up
problems when the contract was awarded in December 1999.

"But those weren't our problems," Kamin said. "The contractor
never had enough time to do the shakedown before the system became
fully operative."

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